1. Field
A laundry treatment apparatus and a method for controlling a laundry treatment apparatus are disclosed herein.
2. Background
A laundry treatment apparatus is a generic term for electronic appliances that enable washing of laundry or other items (hereinafter collectively referred to as “laundry”), drying of laundry, and both washing and drying of laundry. A laundry treatment apparatus that enables drying of laundry may dry laundry by supplying hot air to a space in which the laundry is received. Some conventional laundry treatment apparatuses use a heat pump. The heat pump may include an evaporator that evaporates refrigerant via heat exchange with surrounding air, a condenser that heats surrounding air by condensing the refrigerant, and a compressor that compresses the refrigerant discharged from the evaporator and supplies the compressed refrigerant to the condenser.
Laundry treatment apparatuses using the heat pump have difficulty in achieving consistent drying performance because a temperature of air introduced to the evaporator may vary according to an environment in which the laundry treatment apparatus is located. That is, when the laundry treatment apparatus is operated at a low temperature, for example, when the laundry treatment apparatus is installed in a cold area or is operated during a cold season, a temperature of air introduced to the evaporator may be low, and therefore, it may take a long time to increase the temperature of air supplied to laundry to a desired level via the heat pump. This problematically increases a drying time, and consequently, increases power consumption of the laundry treatment apparatus.
When the laundry treatment apparatus is operated under high temperature conditions, for example, when the laundry treatment apparatus is installed in a hot area or is operated during a hot season, the temperature of air introduced to the evaporator may be high. This is advantageous from the aspect of increasing the temperature of air supplied to laundry to a desired level via the heat pump, but problematically increases a load on the compressor.
In addition, when the laundry treatment apparatus is installed in a high temperature or low temperature environment, a longer or shorter drying time may be required compared to a time required when the laundry treatment apparatus is operating under normal conditions (within a range from 18° C. to 25° C.), which causes variation in the drying time even though a same quantity of laundry is dried.